Two Minutes Before the Hour
by Xenonwolf
Summary: The story of Jake and his only barrack mate at Hells Gate. They will be stressed, they will be tried, the only question is, will they survive. Don't own Avatar, don't like, don't read.
1. Chapter 1

My eyes open to the top of my cryo unit. One of the sleep matrons of the ISV Venture Star came over and unbuckled me. I float off of it, and drift over to Jake Sully, of whom I made fast friends with before we were sent off to Pandora. Jake was a paraplegic marine before he was sent off on this expedition to this moon. Apparently his brother was signed up to go but was mugged, robbed, and killed before he left. The government then approached Jake with the offer to go because his brother's avatar was already made. An avatar is worth millions of dollars, and is a piece of human and a piece na'vi DNA mixed together to create a body that is na'vi like in appearance and functionality, that takes multiple years for it to grow to standard size. They approached Jake with the offer because he and his brother were twins, so their DNA was close enough to work, and the fact that they didn't want to waste the avatar helped it go along.

Before I signed up for the trip I was an engineer, designing and building AMP suits, air regulators, and guns for the RDA. Before I did that I went through university majoring in mechanical engineering, and had a minor in computer science. I liked to think that I was a smart person while doing all that but I don't really know. I'm about six five (6'5") with dark brown almost black hair. I have a deep blue eye, with my other being slightly more green. Before we were allowed to go to Pandora, we were trained to shoot and how to take orders.

"You've been in cryo five years, nine months, and twenty-two days. You will feel hungry, you will feel week." Called one of the matrons.

We drift over to the lockers and get something to eat. From there we go to the ship to Pandora shuttle. Wow that's weird... Pandora... that's going to take a while to get used to. As the Falcon shuttles us down from space, I watch out the window and see a large mining operation happening to get the unobtanium, the little pieces of rock that is the point of sending all of us out here.

As we approach Hell's gate, which is the main base of operations, Sargent Colonel Major, or whatever gives us the speal on how Pandora's very air is deadly poisonous to our bodies. The others disembark and march off to the very first debrief with the head of security,I stick behind with Jake and walk out with him.

"Hey look the meat's on wheels" said the greeting grunt one, who I later found out is actually Lyle Wainfleet.

" Now that's just sad" said greeting grunt two, pitying Jake because of his condition.

We arrived late for the briefing but got the gist of it. You go out, you act like a dumbass, you come back with an arrow through your chest. So yeah, nice and cheery first day introduction.

After the intro 'the death hole' Jake and I split up. That's me, Vaughn Calloway, head of the team that designed the AMP suits , and made them on earth. Now I'm shipped out to Pandora to do on site upgrades, fixes, tweaks, creating, and to make sure things run smooth. Now the only reason I'm recording this is that I'm sure no one will hack or steal the vid log. How I know that they won't is a) I have it so it records to a local disk/drive in the bottom, instead of the R.D.A.'s data bank, b) I have a touch identification pad to open the door to get the drive open, and c) I have encrypted the storage drive my self and had other computer scientists try to hack in and if they did succeed then it would wipe itself clean, before they had a chance to see anything.

As for me when we split, I went to see my 'home' for the next few years. It's not barracks with all the bunks, if your wondering, it's the hanger where I'll be spending the majority of my time here. In the hanger they store and care for all the AMP suits, Scorpions (you know the attack helicopters), the Samson's, the Dragons, and in the lockup in the back is where all small(er) guns are stored, which ranges from Wasps, (what's with these guys and naming things after insects and reptiles, can't wait until I find something thing that isn't.) which are the standard handguns, assault rifles, combat shotguns, the occasional rail gun, a few grenade launchers and flamethrowers, and rarely you could find a personal weapon of somebody's choice that was brought back by a friend after they died.

As I snoo-ahhh.. look around the lockup I saw a twisted, and beaten AMP suit in the back that seems to had some one try to fix it but didn't really do much to it. I don't blame them for giving up though because from what I saw it was missing most of it's left hand, it's right leg was twisted around so it was facing backwards, most of the right shoulder was missing and it probably had many other problems, not to mention the numerous claw marks and both red and purple blood splashes on it. I was going to investigate it more but I was interrupted by the head of maintenance, who I was supposed to report to but forgot to. She gave me the low-down on how even though I'm maintenance, I could be called upon for fire support on the official excuse of them needing field repairmen, but really it's just for more guns.

Once I finished chatting with the head, she told me to go check out the rest of the hanger. I checked out the Scorpion storage, and as I was walking through the AMP hangers I saw colonel Quaritch and Jake talking to each other. When they finish talking, the colonel walked off in his AMP suit and Jake started to wheel off. I ran to catch up to him, and asked him how his day went, and let me tell you that it sounded a hell of a lot better than mine. After about an hour of stumbling along together we found our barracks which was weirdly only us even though it had twenty bunks. Oh yeah as a post script, I asked the head about the AMP suit at the back of the lock up and she said that I was welcome to try and fix it but so far no one who tried had any luck, and she also didn't say who's it was and what happened to it.

::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

An. First fic. Really welcome constructive criticism, and hope to go far with the stories idea. WARNING; updates may be few and far between.


	2. Chapter 2

Start of log 2

Today was the first real day on the job. Heh, it was weird. Usually with school and some jobs they'll treat the first day there as "warm up" or introduction into what you would doing there. I wish that's what would have happened. There was no intro just a hello here's a gun, follow that truck to a mine, stand around all day if you're lucky, get dragged back in time for the doctors to save you if your moderately lucky, die when your coming back if you aren't really, and don't come back at all if you're not. I know that's what would happen, I saw it happen today. It was harsh. These cat-ish black things came, and ripped at least four people to shreds before they died. I think it was only four but it could've been more, I didn't feel that inclined to stand there and look at shredded body pieces trying to find out how many limbs there were and what body they belonged to. I have since then learned that those things were called Viperwolves. (Oh look, more reptile names.) The mine was rather plain, I mean it had one of the large excavating wheels that we saw on the way in, but they looked to have just started this mine for it was only one hundred feet wide and fifty deep.

When we came back I saw that Jake's research team that he flew out on in the morning arrived back, but for the life of me couldn't find him himself. From what I overheard (I haven't been dropping no eaves, Jake!) from the team he was last seen booting his arse away from a Thanator, running like no tomorrow, but since he's not out of his pod yet that hopefully means that the avatar is still alive. I didn't know anybody else other than Jake, let alone the fact that I didn't feel inclined to get to know somebody else, I went to take a look at that AMP suit again.

It wasn't overly terrible, I mean for what it originally looked like, it actually looks fixable. The one leg is turned 180 degrees at the knee so that's, going to need a replacement, either ordered in (probably won't spend the money on that, will they) or I could make a usable leg for now. The other leg seems fine, but might have a few problems just due to the fact of not being used for however long it has been in here for. The one arm is heavily dented with the hand missing so needs a replacement one or something else, and the other is missing enough that'll be less work just to build a new arm than to try and fix it. The main body has enough damage that I will just strip it and keep the frame as the base. I took the appendages off, but couldn't do any more for the supper bell (cough, alarm, cough) rang. I double timed it to the cafeteria because a. I love food and b. Jake might there. Turns out he was. I came there to here the end of his tale on how he was taken by a Na'vi to the home tree, which is the home base of the Omnimacaya people. Sounds like he had more fun then me.

End of log 2

Start of log 3

I woke up this morning and saw that Jake was gone and found a note about how the Na'vi's day starts early, which is rather shocking because our day in the RDA starts very early too. I was put on general maintenance today, which was okay and the only bad side was that most of the mercs saw fit to boss us around, and make us do unnecessary things, like paint dragons onto AMPs, Dragons, Auto Canons, and all other sorts of decals that make them look tuff. After lunch though, I was shifted over to inventory duty, and told that every day that I wasn't out guarding a mining operation, I would be guarding the lockup, making sure nobody got in, counting inventory, and handing out guns to the new 'cruits that come in, and receiving guns that the reclamation squad bring back from the dead bodies out on the fields and the ones that didn't make it back in time. Apparently the last 'governor of guns' was one of the ones torn up yesterday. More fun for me! (That was sarcasm, Jake!) It is really boring sitting behind a counter all day, not being allowed to leave, and staring at the people of the base going about there business.

I stripped the legs of the AMP down until it was just the frames of them. I could reuse the frames of them and makeup a new bottom for the twisted one, or I could just make the different version of it that they use for the construction suits on earth. The only reason that they don't ship those out is that the weighed to much and they didn't want to spend the money on the fuel to get it out here. The cheapskate 'tards. The construction suits are more durable because they are meant to be a multi application tool, one that replaced cranes, excavators, and most everything else, because of the greater maneuverability and the ability to do the same things just as good or better. They are built to be able to resist a building falling on them and be able to move a thousand tons if you could figure out how to load it. There are also the mining ones that are nearly the same with the exception of the arms from the elbow down are drills.

I'm going to have to make the suit out of lighter materials but I'm sure I could improvise something to preform the same function. This project is going to end up to be something else, for it will look nothing the same as other AMP's that are in use up here. I'll have to reinforce the limbs for where they attach are the weak point because of the hydraulic hoses to move the joints. I think I'll build a cage like exterior over the shoulders and back as a light frame, so it could be used as a minor armour and to help me carry things around with me. I also want to add in four head lights, two above and two below the plexiglass that way, if I get stuck out like what Jake was then I can have some light to see by. I should replace the bottom of the "feet" with rubber instead of aluminum plates so it'll have better grip when out in the field.

On a happy note, I started work on it and have the legs being reformed, but really it will be a very slow process because I have to build a new suit from nearly scratch because the only thing I will keep is the body because it was mostly intact, just needs some upgrades. Jake has come back on time and left to talk to Quaritch for some reason or other. Oh, as a post script, don't come here, the food sucks, today was a brown sludge, I don't know how I will live here for my tour if that is what they're feeding us. I feel very envious of the avatars because they can actually eat the fruit here without contracting millions of unknown diseases.

End of log 3


	3. Chapter 3

Start of log 3

Today was another day in the field, full of gun-toating, trigger happy mercenaries, who itch to pulverize anything that moves with discourses of speeding lead. I'm not kidding because I saw this one guy near the back of the convoy open fire on a leaf, and all the others near him followed suit, blindly firing into the shrubbery, all because the first guy was very twitchy. Looking back now I guess the first guy might've been on the safe side because it could've been a Na'vi sitting in wait to strike at our back, but I really doubt that making all of the trees surrounding that one leaf that moved at the start, look like some turf that a stubborn AMP suit wearer and hammerhead had a war over to keep, and once finished, walked through what was left. In other words the trees were blown half through, and the remains in a pile, oozing out acidic sap that was slowly eating away at the ground below it.

When we got to the mining site, I was told by the commanding officer of our guard that my job this day and every other day that we'll be out here was in the surveillance shack by the edge of the fence, sitting all day, and staring at the monitors showing the feeds from the cameras on the fence. I think that they learnt that it was a bad idea to set the lock-up guard on general guarding during the mine days from the last one and how he died, so they must have decided that the safest place for me was in a concrete shack be the edge of the dig.

On the one hand I guess that it is more protected than out in the open, but if something happens to get in then we're trapped between a violent thing and a cement wall. It was a quiet day there and also with Jake. Apparently all he had was more motor control, jumping up trees, climbing vines, and other thing to work with. He also has this deal that him and Quaritch are keeping secret between themselves, and it goes that Jake helps break the local Na'vi moral and make them flee, then he gets his legs back to full working order in his human body. Only they and me know it so I guess it is actually hush hush and all, considering that even Selfridge doesn't even know yet.

End of log 3

Start of log 4

Today was another day in the lock-up, staring at blank space, or at least that's what I was supposed to be doing. In the morning I actually did some looking at the storage logs, and low and behold, they're totally useless, as no one checks them because the last time that any of them were looked at was when they were entered into the system. That means I could not enter one thing into the database, and keep it for myself and no one would know of it because they don't check.

The arms of the AMP are touchy things to work on, because each of the fingers need to be individually calibrated to perform at the optimum level of performance possible. One thing I have noticed is that the RDA gets their suits for the grunts generally adjusted and then call it good enough and leave it at that. The issue with that is that everyone has different builds, right, so that means everyone's arms are different lengths, their hands may be wider or longer, and so on and so on. All that leads to issues with performance, which, of course cannot possibly be their fault and must be the developers for not equating for Pandora's atmosphere and gravity being different than earths. The idiots.

Any way, I was thinking now that the next day I'm stuck in there I might have to play around with some of the stuff in there. I mean to say that I will make edits to some of the more uncommon guns in the lock-up to see what might work. Right now I thinking that I'll take the Medusa M-47 revolver that I saw on the way out today, and maybe drill three holes that are slightly larger than the normal six in the cylinder. That way, with a little tinkering, it would be able to hold three shotgun shells instead of the pistol and rifle ammo that it usually takes. Another thing I might do is dream up a new mask for me to use because I just don't like the idea of only the on piece of plexi being in between life and death for me. There's always work to do and I have to get up early tomorrow to go out with the mob and sit around all day. I wonder where Jake is, because I haven't seen him yet.

End of log 4

Shout out to ChocolateTeapot for reviewing to every chapter. Rights of the Medusa M-47 go to its owners. Same with Avatar.


End file.
